1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind, I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer’s had, But O! my Heart could bear no more when the upland caught the wind; I ran, I ran, from my love’s side because my Heart went mad.

The chief imagination of Christendom, Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More plain to the mind’s eye than any face But that of Christ.

What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There’s better exercise In the sunlight and wind.

Style, personality – deliberately adopted and therefore a mask – is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and money-changers.

And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well; And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.

I – though heart might find relief Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief What seems most welcome in the tomb – play a predestined part. Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.

Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he will be thinking about love til the stars run away and the shadows eaten the moon...

Come let us mock at the good That fancied goodness might be gay, And sick of solitude Might proclaim a holiday: Wind shrieked and where are they?

If we could love and hate with as good heart as the faeries do, we might grow to be long-lived like them. But until that day their untiring joys and sorrows must ever be one-half of their fascination. Love with them never grows weary, nor can the circles of the stars tire out their dancing feet.